Freedom In The Time Of Corona
It was the 10th of December 1948, a cold Parisian day, when the 58 members of the United Nations stipulated The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. An important historic document that sets out fundamentals human rights such as liberty; freedom of speech, movements and association; equality; and protection of privacy. The base upon a democratic country should be built. Today, during the blossoming of spring 2020, some of these ineluctable liberties have been undermined as reaction to a health crisis. Others had been for far less.
The menace of terrorism opened the door for a mass surveillance. Internet and social media picked the lock. Now, a global pandemic could lead citizens to deliver the keys of their own freedom to governments, in the name of safety. The temporary suspension of some civil rights to limit the spread of COVID-19 seems to be the best option for containing the infection. But, are we ready to accept having our movements traced by an App? Will we really be safer? Who is going to protect us from the implications that the Freedom 2.0 involves?
Since the digitalisation era took place, many concerns have arisen about the protection of our privacy. Through Internet and social media, we are sharing our personal information on daily basis. Although this smart collection of data can often make our lives easier, our freedom seems to be at stake. Already in the far 2013, the US whistleblower Edward Snowden expressed his preoccupations about how the NSA (National Security Agency) could use sensible data from all over the world at its discretion. Then, there was the scandal of Cambridge Analytica in 2018 to put under spotlight our biggest fear. Dreads, assumptions, certainties and who knows how many untold stories. Fictional plots of the best dystopian novels, movies and TV series appear always more close to reality.
An App that can trace the population and stop the contagion. No, we are not watching a Black Mirror’s episode. It is real life, news. The global response for coping with the invisible enemy of the moment. All a means to an end, right? Lots of countries in the world are now developing tracing apps for managing the post lockdown life. Different modalities and technologies have been employed but the goal is the same. Through these applications, available for every smartphone, we can monitor our clinic situation and know whether we could have had contacts with positive subjects.
The Chinese Big Brother have not missed the chance to increase social control. Geo-localisation and scan codes are already in use within the population. Also in South Korea, GPS data are collected from different sources, such as credit card and google maps, for tracking positive individuals. On 20th of March, Singapore released TraceTogether, the first Bluetooth solution in the world. A more privacy friendly option, it doesn’t require precise location and protects people’s identities. This is the winner technology towards developers across the globe are working on. Even the two tech-giants have decided to join forces. At mid-April, Apple and Google announced that they would enable the use of these type of applications, putting at the core users’ privacy and security. A European Union task force is proceeding on the same path, helping every country to develop its own apps, respecting some essential requirements. In the United Kingdom, Bluetooth signal allows to track devices in anonymous form. It sounds reassuring, doesn’t it?
Unfortunately, more than one concern remains. First of all: privacy matters. Where will be stored all our data? Among the Bluetooth technology, there are two kind of approach: so called decentralised and centralised. A decentralised system stores the record of devices interaction on users’ phones. This is the framework that Apple and Google built together and the majority of countries embraced. Other countries like UK, France and India opted for a centralised kind where the contact-matching is processed on a remote server. This type of model can give the epidemiologists more insights about the spread of the virus but it is less protected from hackers attacks and government control. After internal frictions, Norwegian authorities stopped the use of its Smittestopp App and are now considering to switch to the Apple/Google design. Centralised models encounter also some technical problem, in particular related to how Apple restricts the use of Bluetooth. Singapore and Australia have both experienced their apps not working properly in the background of iPhones. Singapore has already introduced wristbands instead while Australia has decided to adopt the API of the two tech-giants.
Even though it is taking into consideration a possible change of direction, UK seems not to regret its plan for the moment. According to them, a technology of that kind would be crucial for researching purpose. Researching, fair. It can be arguable which is the objective, though. What was the precise role that GCHQ, UK’s domestic spy agency, had over the choice of this type of technology? A centralised app is able to integrate new invasive features, in the future. An article appeared on Wired the last 13th of May revealed a leak of internal NHS documents that show a roadmap of the app’s future development. A plan for adding new functions, such as health status, precise location and donation of data, is already among NHS authorities’ agenda. As Matthew Gould, the chief executive of NHSX, stated, the app will evolve over time.
It seems that the NHS is planning a longterm future for its own application. Will we be ready for the ‘new normal’? Lots are the worries coming from academics and privacy experts. An app of this kind is a powerful tool that could give authorities additional surveillance powers. Something difficult to renounce. In an open letter to Google, 300 academics from around the globe expressed their worries about the jeopardisation of our privacy due to “mission creep”. This will result with “systems which would allow unprecedented surveillance of society at large” the letter said. Reflecting upon this point, Snowden described it as the creation of “the architecture of oppression”.
After the failure of Isle of Wight’s trial, we still don’t have a release date, the certainty upon which kind of technology the app will be built on and lots of concerns. The ‘unbeatable’ test, track and trace programme is stumbling right at its start. On 28th of May just the human side of the contact tracing system was launched, with 25.000 call centre operators working on it. Complains have already came from employees, criticising the lack of training and guidance during the process. For the NHS App a realistic inception seems July, but some argued that it could be fully operative only in September.
Its degree of effectiveness has been also questioned. All democratic countries agree that the users must decide voluntarily if downloading and using the app. However, studies conducted at the University of Oxford revealed that, for being effective, the app has to be used by the 60% of population, that means about 80% of smartphone owners. A pretty ambitious objective. After the flop of Singapore, where just 12% of population downloaded TraceTogheter, its prime minister made a plea for inviting all the citizens to use the app. For how long is it going to be a free choice, then? As the Guardian reported, the UK health secretary Matt Hancock said that it is ‘public’s civic duty’ to follow the test and trace instructions. “This will be voluntary at first because we trust everyone to do the right thing, but we can quickly make it mandatory if that’s what it takes” he added. They are just going to impose you to comply with your “civic duty”. Well, someone, before me, was calling it ‘soft dictatorship’.
The quality of data is another factor that could affect its efficacy. Bluetooth signal can pass through walls and vary according how we are holding our phone. Also, users might not update constantly their clinic situation. Or worse, they could exaggerate in doing it. That will create pointless alarmism among people as well as untruthfully results. After some researches that show evidence of a limited gauge of effectiveness, Belgium decided to not use any apps and manage the COVID-19 infection with human tracers only.
Every tragedy has many victims but also some winners. As every crisis, also the Coronavirus pandemic is a moment of changes. But a contact tracing app is a powerful object, in both ways. In the best scenario, it could facilitate the work of human contact tracers in tackling with the spread of the disease. In the worst, it would prove its limits while plowing the field of a new type of mass surveillance. So far, UK government denied parliament the opportunity to increase legislations for protecting users’ privacy and limiting the use of the NHS App. Also, if not every worker is entitled to a sick pay, it would be unlikely that everybody will follow alert instructions. Without new privacy regulations and job policies, inaugurating the use of such type of technology is a risky move that we would soon regret.
The impact that new technologies have on our lives has been for a long time an object of concern. Our need to be constantly connected worldwide has a price to pay. Human relationships are shaped. Privacy and freedom threatened. So, it could be another little drop in an ocean of surveillance, right? Or, perhaps, it is one of those that will overflow the sea. As the Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau said, “I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery”. Now it is our turn to choose what we prefer. To decide when all of this is becoming simply too much.
References:
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
Edward Snowden: https://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/nov/01/snowden-nsa-files-surveillance-revelations-decoded#section/1
Cambridge Analytica: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica
GCHQ: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52441428
Article: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/nhs-covid-19-app-health-status-future
Open Letter: https://www.ft.com/content/005ab1a8-1691-4e7b-8e10-0d3d2614a276
Studies: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6491/eabb6936
Guardian Reported: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/27/government-unveils-covid-19-test-and-trace-strategy-for-england
Written by Chiara Castro
Chiara is an Italian writer based in Bristol. She likes writing about things that matter and stuff she loves. Travels, books, movies and good beers are some of them. Check her out here https://medium.com/@chiaracastro